US: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims fall to 730K vs. 838K expected

• Weekly Initial Jobless Claims in the US declined by 111,000.
• US Dollar Index remains deep in the red around 89.80.

There were 730,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending February 20, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This reading followed the previous print of 841,000 (revised from 861,000) and came in better than the market expectation of 838,000.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index struggles to stage a meaningful rebound after this report and was last seen losing 0.42% on the day at 89.79.

Additional takeaways

"The 4-week moving average was 807,750, a decrease of 20,500 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.1% for the week ending February 13."

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending February 13 was 4,419,000, a decrease of 101,000 from the previous week's revised level."